Black Cake is a novel that I’ve seen favorably reviewed over the past few years, and according to its cover, has been made into a Hulu series. I can understand why Hulu would be drawn to this story. Black Cake involves colonialism, racism, generational misunderstanding and trauma, and resilience. The novel itself is set up with alternating points of view, the most compelling being that of Eleanor Bennett. She has died and left behind for her children a recording in which she reveals astounding secrets that she has kept her entire life. But it is also the story of her children, now grown and facing their own struggles due to their race and sexuality, and it is the story of people who were colonized, became immigrants and struggled to fit in to their new countries.
Eleanor Bennett and her deceased husband Bert were born and raised in the Caribbean, later lived in England and eventually moved to Southern California, where they raised two very talented children — Byron and Benny (Benedetta). Byron is a world renowned oceanographer, a true success story. Benny, meanwhile, has struggled; while brilliant at school, incidents that occurred in college and in her personal life have led to her estrangement from her family for several years. She has drifted from place to place, and relationship to relationship. The four members of the Bennett family are stubborn and unwilling to be the one to take the first step to apologize and heal rifts. After Eleanor dies, Benny returns to Southern California for the funeral and the reading of the will. She and Byron both struggle with what they hear their mother tell them in the recording and with their anger and hurt feelings toward each other. Wilkerson teases out Eleanor’s story over the course of many chapters with Byron and Benny’s struggles interspersed in between. Eleanor’s story is full of tragedy but also resilience and a desire to move forward to the life she has always wanted. Her story involves a number of side characters who provide support, sometimes unwittingly, as she tries to build a life for herself and her family.
The “Black Cake” of the title refers to a recipe that Eleanor received from her own mother and has passed along to her children. Black cake was a well known treat in the Caribbean and in England, with the two cultures each providing something essential to the mix. Is it British? Is it Caribbean? Is it something different and new? Obviously, the cake and the story of colonized peoples who strive for independence are intertwined.
Overall, I was really interested in this story and discovering the truth of Eleanor Bennett’s life. Wilkerson includes a lot of interesting detail about life on a Caribbean island in the 1950s and 1960s, the surprising mix of races there, the struggles for anyone, especially girls, if they wanted to move on/away, and complications related to single motherhood. There is a lot of very sad, but historically accurate information about single motherhood and adoptions here. I think it’s a well told story and I look forward to seeing how it is treated on Hulu.